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I noticed a minor discrepancy, and I'm thinking that either this policy needs rewording, or the process documentation at WP:AFD is incorrect. If this has been brought up before, just point me to the prior conversation.
This policy states "The discussion lasts at least five days ..."; but WP:AFD states "Articles listed here are debated for up to five days ..." (emphasis in both were added by me). I'm not a big fan of inconsistencies, which is why I ask. I suspect that WP:AFD is written based on existing practice; which suggests the policy needs to be amended to match the actual process that's in place - or am I missing something? --- Barek ( talk • contribs) - 05:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I have been reading over the article on Committee_for_Accuracy_in_Middle_East_Reporting_in_America and the related article on Media_coverage_of_the_Arab-Israeli_conflict. Both these articles discuss alleged attempts by an organization to influence the content of the Wikipedia.
It seems to me that articles of this type are not suitable for inclusion in our encyclopedia, because they perforce involve a conflict of interest and a violation of the NPOV policy. Regardless of the personal opinions of the individual editors of these articles (which are, by the way, highly contentious), the final product is inevitably a statement of Wikipedia's stance in a conflict with another organization. Neutrality in this case is not an option. The subject might well be notable and encyclopedic in character; however, we must, I believe, leave the documentation of this topic to some other encyclopedia.
What do others think of this? -- Ravpapa ( talk) 08:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
If multiple reliable sources outside of Wikipedia are discussing an issue, should Wikipedia ignore it simply because Wikipedia is involved in the issue? An effort should be made to avoid placing too much emphasis on the issue, and all WP policies should apply to the information, but information shouldn't be ignored just because it is about Wikipedia. We should avoid using Wikipedia as a source of information, but we should treat information related to Wikipedia that is outside of Wikipedia just as we would as if it were about any other subject.-- 76.214.153.120 ( talk) 18:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify: I agree completely that WP editors can and do write neutrally and clearly about controversial issues. The article on CAMERA is, in fact, not bad at all. My point is that, regardless of what the editors (myself included) write and what their own positions may be, an article in the WP about a controversy involving the WP will necessarily be seen as a position statement on that controversy.
The example of BBC reporting on itself is instructive. When I was a newspaperman, many years ago, we assiduously avoided writing anything about controversies involving our own coverage. We always let someone else do that. Whenever the New York Times covers a controversy involving itself, no matter how objective, it is always picked up by some other paper with the sentence, "The Times responded that ... " -- Ravpapa ( talk) 20:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with much, but not all, of what has been said above. But these examples are not ones for a deletion policy issue, this is an editing policy issue. A better venue would be Wikipedia talk:Self-references to avoid, given the "Writing about Wikipedia itself" and "Articles are about their subjects" sections of that guideline. Could this discussion move over to that talk page? GRBerry 16:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Section "Deletion review" (which is also the Wikipedia:Undeletion policy) mentions about an article being deleted for having "inappropriate content". It's not clear what comes under inappropriate. That sentence can be expanded and made more specific.
I also would like to know if it is possible that I agree with the deletion of a page, but I would like to undelete the page for the sole reason of restoring its page history, provided of course that I make it a worthy article following the restoration. Jay ( talk) 13:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
A user asked me to restore old deleted versions of Uni5 for research. This article was deleted after an AfD, because it was a crystal-ball article about a future album. It was written from scratch later, and appears to be properly sourced (i didn't check it too deeply.)
Now - is it OK per the current policy to restore the old crystal-ball versions? I couldn't find an answer in this policy. I think that it's reasonable, as they don't include anything illegal, but wanted to be sure. The policy should be updated to include such cases. -- Amir E. Aharoni ( talk) 18:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
I have started a thread to Stop the wholesale Deletion of the Usepages of Indefinitely Blocked Users at WT:CSD. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#Proposal_to_change_the_length_of_deletion_discussions_to_7_days and comment! Fritzpoll ( talk) 11:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
How long is sufficiently long to allow for pages to be merged after a deletion debate that ended in a decision to merge? 1 week? 1, 3 or 6 months? The template {{
Afd-mergeto}}
suggests "promptly". Of course wikipedia has no deadlines, and "prompt" is a relative term, however I would have thought it was reasonable to expect some indication of activity after a month. Some guidance here would be helpful. Thanks, --
Rogerb67 (
talk)
22:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
FYI: Proposal to make unreferenced BLPs speedy-deleteable. -- Amalthea 16:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I've been involved in discussions on WP:CSD regarding BLP articles which have been tagged - often for a significant length of time - as unreferenced but have not been cleaned up. There are currently over 11,000 such articles and I'd like to start a discussion on our deletion policy on these so we can move towards a solution.
This deletion policy states that:
Reasons for deletion include ... articles that breach Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons
The policy on biographies of living persons ( WP:BLP) states:
Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully ... The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests with the person who adds or restores material, and this is especially true for material regarding living persons
In isolation, you could interpret this to mean that unsourced BLP articles do not comply with BLP and therefore that, on its own, is grounds for deletion.
However, BLP then goes on to say:
If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, containing primarily unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion ... Page deletion should be treated as a last resort, with the page being improved and remedied where possible
In addition, this deletion policy states:
If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion
Given that the backlog of unsourced BLP is large and growing and the importance of applying WP:BLP, I'd like to suggest that the burdon of proof is reversed; any unsourced BLP tagged as such for, say, over a month, should be deleted if proposed at AFD, unless of course anyone has provided sources whilst the AFD is open. In cases like these, the nominator should not be expected to have investigated potential sources before nominating for deletion. AndrewRT( Talk) 22:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Limited previous discussion:
Relevant "main" page for this process:
There seems to be a lack of broad consensus about how and when such user talk pages should be deleted. Additionally, there is a lack of guidance and support within policy for such deletions. We need to:
I believe it is uncontroversial to delete talk pages for vandalism-only accounts. In circumstances where harassment or the talk page could be considered an attack page, I similarly believe that deletion is fairly uncontroversial. There are numerous concerns about the blanket deletion of such pages, including but not limited to, the obfuscation of the history of disruptive editors and the invalidity of some arguments. As an example of the latter, many people have claimed it "saves space", but the opposite is true, as the database retains the deleted information and actually increases in size with the deletions. It would behoove us to clarify the circumstances under which deletion is acceptable and preferable (both distinct issues), and which circumstances make deletion undesirable. Thoughts? -- Vassyana ( talk) 09:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Just make it part of the process to check for a deleted talk page when reviewing an unblock request. It take 3 seconds, and the only people who can undo a block can also see the deleted talk page. Hiberniantears ( talk) 12:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I've just gone back and reviewed the statistics and analysis in the discussion Mr.Z-man linked to, and I still don't actually see any reasons for deleting these. The statistics given are about reducing the number of false positives in the relevant category. The only reason I saw there that made any sense for deleting any of these pages was that some were spam-related, and those are already covered under the speedy guidelines. I would like to gather a consensus for stopping this practice altogether.-- Aervanath ( talk) 02:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
I see no compelling reason to continue with such deletions in the absence of consensus, and no argument with the assertion that in the absence of an agreed WP:CSD criteria, routine speedy deletions should not occur (even if once they did). Claims of a past consensus do not override a need for consensus now, given that some people have pled for the practice to stop with claims of actual hindrance for no apparent gain.
Logically, this means STOP. Stop deleting anything where the deletion is not authorised generally by WP:CSD or specifically by an XfD.
Should a CSD criteria covering whatever type of talk pages be introduced? I don’t think so. There seems to be no case for their deletion other than a few people who dislike allegedly useless pages. Others are merely in the habit of deleting them. Their continued existence as live pages is not causing actual problems. Specific types of pages are already covered by existing criteria. Special cases can go to WP:MfD.
However, if I am wrong, and there is a reason to routinely delete talk pages, then propose it at WT:CSD, or if such deletions are already occurring, then add the description of the practice to WP:CSD. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Criteria for speedy deletion specify the limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion.
This might mean that we need to have discussions on every single page of indef blocked users which might be suitable for deletion. Except for some who are very active on such discussion pages, most editors who are mainly active in other fields (but who may have interest in the talkpages in the end) do not see them, and as those are discussions, when general agreement is reached that they can be deleted, even when one editor strongly suggests that the editor has been involved in some form of 'coordinated vandalism' (which is anyway generally true for editors who manage to get indef blocked), the page would be deleted anyway. Also, we do have editors who come back after long, long time (on different IPs or usernames) performing their 'signature vandalism'. Deletion at first seems reasonable (as the signature vandalism is not recognised then), but cases exist where the old tracks would be very useful. And even, the signature vandalism may not even be recognised earlier.
However, if we use other methods to clear this up, then we would not have these problems and discussions, and some solutions can even be done automated (e.g. replacing the active contents with a standard template, making sure it is no-indexed etc.). -- Dirk Beetstra T C 09:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I just met an editor who uses deletion templates to either delete or improve articles that he personally thinks are important (using CSD and PROD). Is this proper? (see Gordonrox24 ( talk · contribs)) and Talk:Joseph-Armand Bombardier
70.29.213.241 ( talk) 10:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | → | Archive 25 |
I noticed a minor discrepancy, and I'm thinking that either this policy needs rewording, or the process documentation at WP:AFD is incorrect. If this has been brought up before, just point me to the prior conversation.
This policy states "The discussion lasts at least five days ..."; but WP:AFD states "Articles listed here are debated for up to five days ..." (emphasis in both were added by me). I'm not a big fan of inconsistencies, which is why I ask. I suspect that WP:AFD is written based on existing practice; which suggests the policy needs to be amended to match the actual process that's in place - or am I missing something? --- Barek ( talk • contribs) - 05:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I have been reading over the article on Committee_for_Accuracy_in_Middle_East_Reporting_in_America and the related article on Media_coverage_of_the_Arab-Israeli_conflict. Both these articles discuss alleged attempts by an organization to influence the content of the Wikipedia.
It seems to me that articles of this type are not suitable for inclusion in our encyclopedia, because they perforce involve a conflict of interest and a violation of the NPOV policy. Regardless of the personal opinions of the individual editors of these articles (which are, by the way, highly contentious), the final product is inevitably a statement of Wikipedia's stance in a conflict with another organization. Neutrality in this case is not an option. The subject might well be notable and encyclopedic in character; however, we must, I believe, leave the documentation of this topic to some other encyclopedia.
What do others think of this? -- Ravpapa ( talk) 08:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
If multiple reliable sources outside of Wikipedia are discussing an issue, should Wikipedia ignore it simply because Wikipedia is involved in the issue? An effort should be made to avoid placing too much emphasis on the issue, and all WP policies should apply to the information, but information shouldn't be ignored just because it is about Wikipedia. We should avoid using Wikipedia as a source of information, but we should treat information related to Wikipedia that is outside of Wikipedia just as we would as if it were about any other subject.-- 76.214.153.120 ( talk) 18:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify: I agree completely that WP editors can and do write neutrally and clearly about controversial issues. The article on CAMERA is, in fact, not bad at all. My point is that, regardless of what the editors (myself included) write and what their own positions may be, an article in the WP about a controversy involving the WP will necessarily be seen as a position statement on that controversy.
The example of BBC reporting on itself is instructive. When I was a newspaperman, many years ago, we assiduously avoided writing anything about controversies involving our own coverage. We always let someone else do that. Whenever the New York Times covers a controversy involving itself, no matter how objective, it is always picked up by some other paper with the sentence, "The Times responded that ... " -- Ravpapa ( talk) 20:17, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree with much, but not all, of what has been said above. But these examples are not ones for a deletion policy issue, this is an editing policy issue. A better venue would be Wikipedia talk:Self-references to avoid, given the "Writing about Wikipedia itself" and "Articles are about their subjects" sections of that guideline. Could this discussion move over to that talk page? GRBerry 16:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Section "Deletion review" (which is also the Wikipedia:Undeletion policy) mentions about an article being deleted for having "inappropriate content". It's not clear what comes under inappropriate. That sentence can be expanded and made more specific.
I also would like to know if it is possible that I agree with the deletion of a page, but I would like to undelete the page for the sole reason of restoring its page history, provided of course that I make it a worthy article following the restoration. Jay ( talk) 13:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
A user asked me to restore old deleted versions of Uni5 for research. This article was deleted after an AfD, because it was a crystal-ball article about a future album. It was written from scratch later, and appears to be properly sourced (i didn't check it too deeply.)
Now - is it OK per the current policy to restore the old crystal-ball versions? I couldn't find an answer in this policy. I think that it's reasonable, as they don't include anything illegal, but wanted to be sure. The policy should be updated to include such cases. -- Amir E. Aharoni ( talk) 18:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
I have started a thread to Stop the wholesale Deletion of the Usepages of Indefinitely Blocked Users at WT:CSD. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#Proposal_to_change_the_length_of_deletion_discussions_to_7_days and comment! Fritzpoll ( talk) 11:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
How long is sufficiently long to allow for pages to be merged after a deletion debate that ended in a decision to merge? 1 week? 1, 3 or 6 months? The template {{
Afd-mergeto}}
suggests "promptly". Of course wikipedia has no deadlines, and "prompt" is a relative term, however I would have thought it was reasonable to expect some indication of activity after a month. Some guidance here would be helpful. Thanks, --
Rogerb67 (
talk)
22:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
FYI: Proposal to make unreferenced BLPs speedy-deleteable. -- Amalthea 16:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I've been involved in discussions on WP:CSD regarding BLP articles which have been tagged - often for a significant length of time - as unreferenced but have not been cleaned up. There are currently over 11,000 such articles and I'd like to start a discussion on our deletion policy on these so we can move towards a solution.
This deletion policy states that:
Reasons for deletion include ... articles that breach Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons
The policy on biographies of living persons ( WP:BLP) states:
Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully ... The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests with the person who adds or restores material, and this is especially true for material regarding living persons
In isolation, you could interpret this to mean that unsourced BLP articles do not comply with BLP and therefore that, on its own, is grounds for deletion.
However, BLP then goes on to say:
If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, containing primarily unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion ... Page deletion should be treated as a last resort, with the page being improved and remedied where possible
In addition, this deletion policy states:
If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion
Given that the backlog of unsourced BLP is large and growing and the importance of applying WP:BLP, I'd like to suggest that the burdon of proof is reversed; any unsourced BLP tagged as such for, say, over a month, should be deleted if proposed at AFD, unless of course anyone has provided sources whilst the AFD is open. In cases like these, the nominator should not be expected to have investigated potential sources before nominating for deletion. AndrewRT( Talk) 22:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Limited previous discussion:
Relevant "main" page for this process:
There seems to be a lack of broad consensus about how and when such user talk pages should be deleted. Additionally, there is a lack of guidance and support within policy for such deletions. We need to:
I believe it is uncontroversial to delete talk pages for vandalism-only accounts. In circumstances where harassment or the talk page could be considered an attack page, I similarly believe that deletion is fairly uncontroversial. There are numerous concerns about the blanket deletion of such pages, including but not limited to, the obfuscation of the history of disruptive editors and the invalidity of some arguments. As an example of the latter, many people have claimed it "saves space", but the opposite is true, as the database retains the deleted information and actually increases in size with the deletions. It would behoove us to clarify the circumstances under which deletion is acceptable and preferable (both distinct issues), and which circumstances make deletion undesirable. Thoughts? -- Vassyana ( talk) 09:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Just make it part of the process to check for a deleted talk page when reviewing an unblock request. It take 3 seconds, and the only people who can undo a block can also see the deleted talk page. Hiberniantears ( talk) 12:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I've just gone back and reviewed the statistics and analysis in the discussion Mr.Z-man linked to, and I still don't actually see any reasons for deleting these. The statistics given are about reducing the number of false positives in the relevant category. The only reason I saw there that made any sense for deleting any of these pages was that some were spam-related, and those are already covered under the speedy guidelines. I would like to gather a consensus for stopping this practice altogether.-- Aervanath ( talk) 02:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
I see no compelling reason to continue with such deletions in the absence of consensus, and no argument with the assertion that in the absence of an agreed WP:CSD criteria, routine speedy deletions should not occur (even if once they did). Claims of a past consensus do not override a need for consensus now, given that some people have pled for the practice to stop with claims of actual hindrance for no apparent gain.
Logically, this means STOP. Stop deleting anything where the deletion is not authorised generally by WP:CSD or specifically by an XfD.
Should a CSD criteria covering whatever type of talk pages be introduced? I don’t think so. There seems to be no case for their deletion other than a few people who dislike allegedly useless pages. Others are merely in the habit of deleting them. Their continued existence as live pages is not causing actual problems. Specific types of pages are already covered by existing criteria. Special cases can go to WP:MfD.
However, if I am wrong, and there is a reason to routinely delete talk pages, then propose it at WT:CSD, or if such deletions are already occurring, then add the description of the practice to WP:CSD. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Criteria for speedy deletion specify the limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion.
This might mean that we need to have discussions on every single page of indef blocked users which might be suitable for deletion. Except for some who are very active on such discussion pages, most editors who are mainly active in other fields (but who may have interest in the talkpages in the end) do not see them, and as those are discussions, when general agreement is reached that they can be deleted, even when one editor strongly suggests that the editor has been involved in some form of 'coordinated vandalism' (which is anyway generally true for editors who manage to get indef blocked), the page would be deleted anyway. Also, we do have editors who come back after long, long time (on different IPs or usernames) performing their 'signature vandalism'. Deletion at first seems reasonable (as the signature vandalism is not recognised then), but cases exist where the old tracks would be very useful. And even, the signature vandalism may not even be recognised earlier.
However, if we use other methods to clear this up, then we would not have these problems and discussions, and some solutions can even be done automated (e.g. replacing the active contents with a standard template, making sure it is no-indexed etc.). -- Dirk Beetstra T C 09:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I just met an editor who uses deletion templates to either delete or improve articles that he personally thinks are important (using CSD and PROD). Is this proper? (see Gordonrox24 ( talk · contribs)) and Talk:Joseph-Armand Bombardier
70.29.213.241 ( talk) 10:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)